Dear John Locke
I am writing to you and the rest of The Enlightenment to apologise for my part in eroding the great work you and your contemporaries have done.
Yesterday I had to take part in a ‘team-building’ exercise that consisted mainly of attending a ‘life coach’ workshop. I have let you down. Willfully.
Initially I treated it with scorn. I had no choice but to attend but I decided that, whilst I wouldn’t be antagonistic, neither would I be a constructive attendee. But that changed. The main catalyst for this was that I had to share a table with two young ladies who I quite fancy. I know one of them is married, and I believe so is the second, and I knew that, even if they weren’t, there was no way they would suddenly demand that I take them, both, right there and then. But that didn’t stop me trying to impress them. Whereas I was going to be awkward and difficult and point out the triteness of our ‘group leader’s’ observations, I caved in and wholly embraced them.
In part I blame the death of Princess Diana. That was the moment the flood gates opened irretrievably against the onrush of the touchy-feely brigade. When people would say things like, ‘I don’t understand the science but I know how I feel and think, and I disagree with (whatever it is)’. As if the opinions of some pashmina-clad society dowager could trump the work of scientific enquiry. When it didn’t really matter what people were crying for, so long as they cried (and projected whatever personal demons they had on to their grief for someone who, in reality, did nothing other than be a face on a commemorative plate). Part of a self-regarding society that doesn’t care what it hears so long as it sounds like a compliment – one day a horoscope will say, ‘you are remarkably direct and simple in your thinking’, and the next day say, ‘there is an admirable complexity to your thoughts’, but the hypocrisy will go unnoticed.
I used to despise all that as well. I looked down on it. But now I’m part of the problem.
I let you down, John.
So could you kindly pass on my apologies, and shame, to Francis Bacon, Descartes, Voltaire, and all those other thinkers of The Enlightenment? I’ve been a part in undoing the work you have done.
I’m sorry. Truly sorry.
Yours (very) Sincerely
Humphrey
Frothers Unite! UK
The Froth Forums!
